


fighting the unforgettable

by Lire_Casander



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Christmas Party, Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-25 05:29:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21810862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lire_Casander/pseuds/Lire_Casander
Summary: Isobel didn't want to throw a Christmas party.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 22
Collections: RNM NWaF Weekend 2019





	fighting the unforgettable

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by the always amazing Tasyfa. All remaining mistakes are my own. 
> 
> Title taken from _Enamórate de alguien más_ by Morat, a translation from this line: _cómo luchar contra lo inolvidable_

Isobel looks at her reflection on the mirror with a critical eye, checking in on her attire as she brushes one hand through her tight ponytail. The deep blue dress hugs her waist in the exact perfect way she wants it to, the neckline showing just enough to make sure every single man in the room — and several women as well — keeps their attention on her. 

“Iz, are you ready?” Max asks from the ground floor, his voice coming muffled through the several closed doors between them, since Isobel is hiding in her ensuite bathroom upstairs. She’s still debating whether or not to sell the two-story house she shared with Noah, because as much as she despises everything that he put her through, it is still _her_ home as well. Even if she had somewhere else to go — and she does, so much as Max and Michael love to repeat — she still doesn’t know if she wants to give up everything she’s built in this house.

“Just a second!” she calls back, opening the door enough to let her voice carry through the stairs. She goes back to her reflection, finding an imperfection in her makeup. She reaches for the foundation and the brush, fixes it, and decides she’s hot enough to scorch everyone in her wake. “Coming!”

When she reaches the first step in her stairs, she looks down to where her twin brother is waiting for her, suit fitting him like a second skin. Isobel allows a smile to breach through her face, one usually reserved to her loved ones. She has _at least_ seven different smiles, but no one has ever noticed them all. Not even Noah, who only knew about three of them. Surely not Max, who’s been preoccupied all his life with keeping their identities under wraps, and then keeping _her_ out of her own secret past, and then resurrecting Rosa. Not Michael, either, although Michael’s got a sensitive streak that has made him the only one to ever notice five. She shakes her head, trying to clear it from the memories that merely thinking about Noah unleashes in her mind.

“You okay?” Max asks as he offers his arm for her to clutch to it when she reaches the ground floor. Her heels are amazing to add a few inches more to her already tall height, but they’re not really that comfortable. Her ankles are already paining her with the pressure she’s putting onto them in order not to slide with the heels. She knows she’s grimaced, she knows that’s why Max is asking.

Isobel’s been making sure that the walls separating their minds are up at all times, because she doesn’t want to go through the grief of losing him once again, or through the overwhelming feeling of having Michael’s troubled psyche warring with her own pain. She’s learned the hard way that her gift can be venomous if allowed to run free — and she’s taken so many liberties with it these past months, that she’s still recovering from them all.

“Yeah, I’m perfect,” she assures him. “Let’s go. Liz won’t forgive us if we are late to her Christmas party.”

“You’re still salty that she beat you to it,” Max accuses her playfully, opening the front door while she grabs her coat and her purse. “Just try to relax and have fun, Isobel. You deserve it.”

“I’ll try,” she promises, even if she knows she’ll be the whole time gazing around and picking up all the mistakes in planning that Liz Ortecho might have made while throwing her very first Christmas party in Roswell ever since Rosa came back.

Max helps her get into the SUV and he walks around the vehicle, leaving her to think about the evening ahead of them. They’re alone in the car, and Isobel wonders if Liz has made Max come pick her up, when he could have been at the Crashdown helping his girlfriend to hang garlands and place the tree top. She voices her thoughts when he sits behind the steering wheel. “Nah, Liz got plenty of help,” he tells her as he starts the car. “Said Michael was going to stop by beforehand and help her with last minute decorations.”

“Michael,” Isobel repeats slowly. She hasn’t heard of her other brother in almost two days, which is the longest they’ve gone without talking to each other ever since she came back to the world of the living from the serum poisoning. “Didn’t know he’d be up for all the Christmas spirit, like, at all.” She doesn’t say that Michael has alway complained whenever he had to help _her_ organize her own Christmas parties, and he’s almost always vanished into thin air _during_ the actual events.

Max simply shrugs as he drives away and into town, lining up for Main Street in a matter of minutes. Isobel’s house isn’t that far from downtown, but it sits at an enough distance to be considered part of one of the quieter neighborhoods in Roswell. When Max stops the car in a spot they conveniently find right in front of the Crashdown, Isobel looks suspiciously at him, one elegant eyebrow arched. “What’s all this about? Finding a parking spot exactly next to the Crashdown?”

“Blind luck, I guess,” Max shrugs again as he kills the engine. 

Isobel opens her door and steps out of the car, one heel slipping on the ground, wet from snow storms from previous days, and she feels her weight dropping dangerously toward the floor. At the last moment, though, there’s a force that keeps her in place and her knees don’t buckle anymore. When she looks up, she sees Michael standing at the door with his left hand — healed, unblemished but still a reminder of darker times — outstretched towards her. “I didn’t need your help,” she mutters under her breath even though all she wants to do is hug her brother and tell him to never disappear for so long without calling her or picking up his phone whenever she calls him.

“Sure,” Michael laughs as he steps closer. “But I offered it anyway. Those heels must be killing you.”

“Just a small price to pay if I want to look as hot as I currently do,” she says flippantly, dismissing him with a wave of her hand when he tries to catch her elbow and steady her. “I can walk on my own. What I need now, though,” she continues, “is a hug from the only brother I have who has fallen out of Earth for the past forty-three hours.”

“Been keeping count?” Michael jokes as he hugs her as asked.

“In your dreams,” she laughs, but she clings to him, allowing his scent — whiskey, wood and engine oil all mixed together — to fill her nostrils. She’s missed him, but she keeps herself from mumbling it into his curls where they get in the way of her fingers threading up his back. “You done helping Ortecho? Are you going to flee now?” The words she doesn’t say, _just like you always do_ , linger between them like a heavy load. Michael clears his throat and shakes his head.

“No, Isobel,” he admits. “I’m staying. Liz asked me to.” The tone is almost apologetic, but it doesn’t soothe Isobel’s rising anger. She doesn’t give into it, not for now, not because Michael’s staying at a party he clearly despises because someone who isn’t _his sister_ has asked him to.

“Liz asked you to,” she drawls slowly, and when the words leave her mouth she realizes she doesn’t want to swallow her anger any longer. She steps back from the hug and looks at both her brothers. “You are staying at a Christmas party you don’t really like because Liz asked you to,” she tells Michael, pointing at him with one perfectly manicured finger. “And you,” she turns to Max as the force of her wrath rolls through her. “You just go around—”

“Isobel, you’re being unfair,” Max protests, cutting her off. He nods his head toward Michael, and when she looks over she sees Michael is looking back at her with a glistening in his eyes that she recognizes as tears. “It’s Christmas time, and we’re going to a party, the three of us. As a family,” he adds when she tries to interrupt him. “So you’re going to apologize to Michael, you’re going to kiss and make up, and we’re going inside.”

“So yeah,” she says unwillingly. She doesn’t like to make Michael cry — and since when has Michael been so sensitive that a simple line can turn him into a mess — but she doesn’t like the way she’s been cut out of their lives these past months. “I’m sorry.”

Max is clearly affronted by the light tone of her apology, but Michael dismisses them with a wave of his hand. “It’s okay, Max. I know that, deep inside, you _are_ sorry, Iz,” he tells her before turning around and opening the door once again. “Do you want to get inside?”

“Yeah, let’s get over with this,” she retaliates as she steps closer to the entrance. The windows have been covered with fabrics so the interior can’t be seen, but there’s a slight music that resembles Christmas carols coming from the inside. “Whoa,” she says, “Liz went overboard and she’s playing Christmas songs now?”

“She learned from the best,” Max informs her. Isobel laughs at him and she nods, knowing he most probably knows her secret. During the past days, ever since Liz took charge of organizing the Christmas party, she’s been trying to get a hold of Isobel for help. Although she hasn’t really got out of her way to actually help Liz, out of jealousy that Liz beat her to it, Isobel has given her some advice that she hopes Liz has taken to heart. If she hasn’t, then the party will be a disaster.

Isobel both wants that to happen and wants to be spared from it.

She really wanted to throw a Christmas party this year, but she hasn’t found the strength to do so. She’s spent half her days bitching about how everyone was moving forward without her, and the other half feeling sorry for herself because she wouldn’t be able to get out of bed. Isobel has always wanted to fit in, to be just normal, and it’s turned out that the kind of normalcy she was living in had been a lie all along. A filthy, terrible lie that’s shaken up her world and her mind. She doesn’t know how to react to that, not when her brothers have been giving her the space she’s asked for — a space she doesn’t really want — not when everyone thinks she’s brave and powerful because she looks like it. 

Sheʼs scared that she will never be the same, that she’s damaged goods now. That no one will ever look twice at her, that this anger will become her permanent state of mind. That she will be forever taunted by the ghost of a husband she never really loved. 

Sheʼs utterly terrified that she’s never going to find out what real love feels like. 

With a last look down at her outfit, the dark beige coat covering the blue short dress still clinging to her frame, the sandals still giving her hell, Isobel takes a step into the café and trips over the heels once again, this time almost falling forward. She’s kept steady by Michael’s powers once again, but he’s not fast enough to avoid her stumbling into the Crashdown in the least elegant fashion of her whole life.

She avoids falling to the ground but when she lifts up her gaze, arms flailing at her side to keep her balance, she sees everyone looking down at her with concern in her eyes. She watches as Liz and Rosa walk to help her. Isobel shakes her head as she straightens her frame and huffs. “Iʼm okay,” she assure everyone even if she hasnʼt seen who else is around. 

“You sure?” Max asks by her side, one hand protectively around her waist. 

“Yes,” she tells him. Isobel sighs and decides to look up and around the café to take in the disaster that she’s sure the Crashdown looks like. 

Her mouth falls open in disbelief and awe. 

The whole café has been reorganized to look like it did in her memories from Christmas past — the booths have been covered in garland and tinsel, there’s a huge tree in the back lot with colorful string lights, and the bar has been turned into a full Christmas buffet. 

Isobel is taken back to the first Christmas together she remembers, when they were eleven and Michael had just come back to Roswell. Their parents had taken them both to the Crashdown three days before Christmas because Arturo and his wife threw a party for all the kids, and she had managed to convince her father to talk to the group home to allow their kids to go as well. Isobel remembers spotting Michael across the room, and she remembers veering for him and hugging him while _Deck The Halls_ sounded in the background. 

Today she has both her brothers by her side, alive and mostly safe and sound, and when she looks around she can see her parents smiling fondly at her as they lift their eggnog in a mock toast. Isobel swallows around the sudden lump in her throat as she takes in the people already enjoying the Christmas setup — apart from her parents and the Ortecho sisters, there’s also Kyle and Alex and Cam in the far corner, Sheriff Valenti and Mimi talking next to the buffet, and Arturo jabbering at Charlie and Maria while they put the finishing touches on one of the decorations. 

“I know you said you werenʼt in the mood for Christmas this year,” Michael explains in a soft voice. “But then you got all mad when Liz insisted in throwing a party, and all we wanted was to cheer you up.”

“I know itʼs not much,” Max keeps saying when Michael trails off. Isobel has the feeling that they have rehearsed this to try and find the best angle in order to not make her angry, and a pang of regret courses through her at the mere thought of her brothers being scared of her reaction. “I know itʼs not much,” he repeats, “but we wanted our family to be here to celebrate our first Christmas together, after everything.” 

Isobel nods slightly, tears welling up in her eyes. This past year has been different, harder in a way her life has never been, and the path to discover who she really is hasnʼt always been smooth. Yet, sheʼs come out alive, and thatʼs more than she could have bargained for. 

“Youʼve done this all, for me?” 

“Always,” both Max and Michael reply without hesitation, joined voices to reassure her that she’s loved and cherished, even with all her flaws. 

Isobel nods again and goes to shed her coat onto the nearest chair. She walks up to her parents, who greet her with effusive kisses and hugs. One of the best decisions of this past year has been getting them — and Arturo, and Mimi and Sheriff Valenti — in on their secret. While Max spent three and a half months in the pod, Isobel couldn’t take it anymore and she caved, spilling everything to her parents in one weak moment. Turned out they already knew, and somehow they didn’t care — but they had been horrified to learn what Noah had put her through. Telling Arturo had been easy as well, but Sheriff Valenti and Mimi had been trickier. In the end, everyone had been accepting and unjudging, and when Max came back to life, he did so to a new extended family who supported and loved them for who they truly were. 

Isobel approaches the beverage table next, with a small smile playing in her lips. Kyle is around there, having left Alex and Cam to a heated discussion about whether or not the return of My Chemical Romance had been the best event of the year. 

“Itʼs been a while since I last saw that smile,” he tells her as he offers her a cup of eggnog. 

“What?” she blinks at him in confusion. 

“Youʼve been putting up a façade this whole year,” he elaborates. “Youʼve smiled, yeah, but it didnʼt always reached your eyes. And itʼs almost always been your third smile.” 

“My third smile,” she repeats. 

Kyle nods and grins. “See, you think I donʼt usually pay attention, but I do. You have seven smiles, Isobel Evans,” and the use of her maiden name fills her with warmth, knowing that she is in fact herself these days. “You have seven smiles.” 

“You think?” she presses on, shipping from her cup and taking in the ironed white shirt with rolled up sleeves and the sleek black trousers Kyle is wearing. 

“I know,” he keeps on. “You have one for Max, and one for Michael. The third one is a polite smile when you really arenʼt having any of the nonsense thrown at you. Then there’s a smile for your family, and the business smile you give to all your customers. The sixth smile is for when youʼre having real fun, and the seventh smile—” he trails off. 

“What about that smile?” she asks him, truly moved that heʼs noticed something that not even her brothers know in full. Isobel fights down a smile she hasnʼt felt like showing for a while now. 

“It was the special smile you gave Noah,” Kyle finished in a low voice, looking down at his hands. 

Isobel shakes her head. She reaches out and laces her fingers around his wrist, tugging at him so he can look up at her. She tries her best to smile the smile he knows she has for whenever she’s having real fun, and says, “Donʼt be mistaken.” 

“What,” he mutters. Their eyes meet and for a brief second Isobel gets lost in a sea of darkness that isn’t scary. She blinks. 

“You’re really observant, Doctor Valenti,” she explains. “You know all about my smiles, much more than my brothers do. But youʼre deeply mistaken about that last smile. It may have been for Noah, yeah,” and the use of his name doesn’t hurt her core anymore. It’s just a faint shadow, a phantom pain that lingers less than expected. “But now, it isn’t anymore.” 

“Isnʼt it?” he whispers, leaning in. She squeezes his wrist, falling closer to him, his scent flooding her senses. 

“It isn’t for _him_ ,” she mutters, realizing that, in fact, she hasnʼt been missing Noah these past months. She’s missed the life she had with him, but it was a lie and she wanted to begin living her truth. For weeks, Kyle has been a constant, always ready to help and to listen; she’s tried to tell herself that the fluttery feeling in the pit of her stomach whenever he was around was simply nervousness, but she can’t deny herself any longer. 

She just wishes he felt the same. 

Carefully, she flashes him the smile she reserves for her loved ones, and lets down her walls. 

He turns his hand and captures her fingers with his, strong and somehow gentle enough so she knows he cares. “Merry Christmas, Isobel,” he whispers, tugging at her. 

Isobel leans in, resting her head on his shoulder with a happy sigh. She looks down at their intertwined fingers and finds out she can’t stop smiling. “Merry Christmas, indeed,” she whispers back, eyes wide open to try and engrave in her mind new memories that, she hopes, will be unforgettable.


End file.
